Kraig Street of Rushville, Illinois, was in a funk on opening day of the 2016 shotgun season because his co-builder wasn’t able to join him for the christening of their homemade blind.
He and his 14-year-old son, Michael, built the shooting house on wheels and hauled it to a cut cornfield a week earlier. The blind had four thickly insulated walls and a camper shell for a roof. The outside was covered in tin, and the interior was plywood.
They painted it a mottled, camo-like brown.
“We put chairs in the blind,” Kraig told John Phillips, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “We wanted a warm, comfortable place to hang out and hunt. We also had a trailer hitch for pulling it with an ATV or a truck.
“Michael and I planned all year to hunt together on opening day of deer season. But through no fault of his or mine, he wasn’t permitted to go with me until 6 p.m. that day, too late for us to hunt,” he added.
Armed with his son’s lightweight shotgun, Kraig went solo that morning.
Less than an hour after crawling in the blind, Kraig saw a wide 10-pointer chase an adolescent buck onto the stubble. Twenty minutes after that, four more bucks pushed a doe into the open.
The bull of the woods stepped out next and ran off all challengers, including the buck that had just bred the doe. Kraig took the 134-yard shot when the cantankerous whitetail stood still and broadside.
He then called his 24-year-old stepson and outdoors buddy, Tyler Rensch, who was hunting nearby with some friends. When Tyler arrived, they began combing the woods for the deer.
When they finally saw it in a depression, still alive, Kraig administered a coup de grace.
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